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JAPAN
Apr 30, 2006

For Golden Week this year, go to a spa and stay close to home

Golden Week may have arrived, but that doesn't mean everyone has elaborate travel plans -- some may be too busy, while others hate the crowds and shun the absurdly expensive air tickets during the holiday season.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 25, 2006

Amadana appliances, Metaphys' Cyclone Cleaner, Jurgen Lehl furniture, Yukimasa Matsuda/Groovisions for Kokuyo

This month we go freestyle, working with our gut instinct about what we like right now. So whether it's adding a dash of design spice to the kitchen, or taking care of your basic cleaning needs, we guarantee that you'll be keeping house in style.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 24, 2006

Tsukada notches fifth straight title

Olympic gold medalist Maki Tsukada won her fifth consecutive title with an ippon victory over Mai Tateyama at the women's national judo championship on Sunday.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2006

Enhanced H5N1 response planned

The health ministry has decided to designate the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza as an infectious disease, officials said.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 9, 2006

Looking at the big picture of Kyoto

CAPITALSCAPES: Folding Screens and Political Imagination in Late Medieval Kyoto, by Matthew Philip McKelway. Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, 282 pp., 24 color plates, numerous b/w illustrations, $56.00 (cloth). One of the major formats in the history of Japanese painting are the byobu-e,...
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2006

Foreign students' goal of career proves elusive

In line with the government's campaign launched in 1983 to boost the number of foreign students in Japan to the 100,000 mark, the figure came to some 117,000 in 2004.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 31, 2006

Metamorphosis through butoh

Like most butoh troupes, Sankai Juku shave their heads and paint themselves a ghostly white. But unlike their contemporaries, this second-generation butoh unit, founded by Artistic Director Ushio Amagatsu in 1975, has spent almost as much time abroad (especially with their many coproductions at the Thea^tre...
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2006

New rules to doom used electrical goods shops?

The phones at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry have been ringing off the hook since early February when it suddenly and quietly changed its enforcement of a 2001 law on electrical appliance safety.
BUSINESS
Mar 25, 2006

Rain factor hit February store sales

Sales at supermarkets fell 1.7 percent in February from the year before on a same-store basis for a second straight monthly decline, while department store sales rebounded 0.5 percent following a marginal fall in January, industry groups said Friday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 24, 2006

The Ornette Coleman Quartet

One of the most controversial and innovative musicians in jazz, Ornette Coleman virtually defined the avant-garde, along with Cecil Taylor and John Coltrane. Their work in the 1960s found ways forward when jazz started to languish and left little musical territory unexplored. Among the many jazz radicals...
EDITORIALS
Mar 20, 2006

Unfinished business for women

Twenty years after the much heralded gender-equality law went into effect in Japan, women still face discrimination in the workplace -- in ways less apparent but just as effective in limiting their promotional opportunities and so also widening the wage gap with male colleagues.
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2006

Ministry fights court disclosure order

The Foreign Ministry filed an appeal Monday with the Tokyo High Court over a lower court ruling that rescinded a 2001 ministry rejection of a citizen group's request for the disclosure of documents on discretionary diplomatic funds, Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 15, 2006

How will delisting impact Livedoor?

The Tokyo Stock Exchange will delist Livedoor Co. on April 14, depriving the Internet company of the ability to raise capital on the market. How will the move affect Livedoor? Here are some questions and answers that address the firm's possible fate:
MORE SPORTS
Mar 1, 2006

Injured Inoue to return to action in early April

Japanese heavyweight judoka Kosei Inoue said Tuesday he plans to return from an injury layoff at the national weight-class championships on April 2.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 25, 2006

Software aids communication in cultural context

Nils Plett, president and CEO of QE Tech, is tall. While angling my camera skyward to get his picture, walking alongside requires two steps to his every stride.
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2006

Confidential MSDF info leaked on Internet via Winny

Confidential information from the Maritime Self-Defense Force has been leaked on the Internet via the peer-to-peer file-sharing program Winny, the MSDF said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Feb 15, 2006

Tokyo department store sales inch up

Department store sales in Tokyo edged up 0.1 percent in January from a year before to E64.60 billion for the third consecutive monthly rise, thanks in part to a cold wave early in the month that helped move winter clothing, an industry group said Tuesday.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 15, 2006

Japan Times wins award for animal rights coverage

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) today announced that The Japan Times is this year's winner of its prestigious International Genesis Award, given in recognition of its Nov. 30, 2005 "breakthrough expose" headlined: " 'Secret' dolphin slaughter defies protests."
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2006

Asahi taps subsidiary head in bid to keep suds on top

Asahi Breweries Ltd. said Friday it had named Hitoshi Ogita, president of Asahi Soft Drinks Co., to replace President Koichi Ikeda, as the country's top brewer faces growing pressure from rival Kirin Brewery Co.
BUSINESS
Feb 10, 2006

Premium beers carve market niche

Breweries have watched beer drinkers defect to cheaper brews in recent years, but now they are beginning to see a small but growing group of consumers willing to pay more for premium beers.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 1, 2006

Asada accepts top athlete award from FSAJ

Figure skater Mao Asada smiles after accepting the 2005 Japanese sportsman of the year award, given by the Foreign Sportswriters Association of Japan, from Japan Times sports editor and FSAJ president Jack Gallagher.
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2006

Tokyo police raid firm importing inhalant drugs

The health ministry filed a criminal complaint Monday against a Tokyo importer for selling a drug that has similar effects to illegal ones, ministry officials said.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 27, 2006

A band that plays along with the joke

Test Icicles have been in Japan for less than 24 hours, and nearly a quarter of that has been spent talking to journalists. Rory Atwell, the band's eldest member at the ripe old age of 25, is still somewhat game, but his younger bandmates, both just 20 years old, have a different agenda. Devonte Hynes,...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 25, 2006

Saving our environment one step at a time

Having ended 2005 with a rant (see below), let me begin 2006 on a more positive note by introducing some valuable environmental education resources.
BUSINESS
Jan 18, 2006

Cold weather cools beer shipments

Shipments of beer and beerlike alcoholic beverages by the top five breweries fell 3.1 percent in 2005 for the first decline in two years due to the colder than usual winter, industry figures showed Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2006

Importer of 'illegal' drug faces sanction

The health ministry will file a criminal complaint against a Tokyo-based importer for allegedly selling a chemical whose effect is similar to that of illegal drugs, ministry officials said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY
Jan 5, 2006

Deal harms Indian interests

NEW DELHI -- A real problem of an ever-shifting goal post has cast a cloud over America's current negotiations with India to implement a much-heralded nuclear deal that is supposed to showcase the emerging global partnership between the world's most powerful and most populous democracies. Seeking to...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 31, 2005

Is hiking taxes the solution to Japan's fiscal mess?

The nation has no choice but to make salaried workers pay more taxes to put its finances in order.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2005

Law eyed to govern sales of high-risk investment tools

A key advisory panel to the government has completed a report on legislative recommendations for clauses in an envisioned comprehensive law to govern sales methods for high-risk investment tools.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past